


Tiny Plaids

by AHeartForStories



Series: AHeartForStories' Febuwhump 2021 [15]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Bruises, Family Feels, Family Fluff, FebuWhump2021, Febuwhump, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III Whump, Hiccup Whump, Hugging, Hurt Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Kisses, Love, Multi, OCs - Freeform, Original Characters - Freeform, Past Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Past Violence, Polyamorous Character, Polyamory, child oc, dragon attack, httyd ocs, implied trauma, past trauma, polyarmorous relationships, run don't look back, vigi tiny hiccup haddock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:07:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29766993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AHeartForStories/pseuds/AHeartForStories
Summary: Written for Febuwhump Day 15. Set in a Modern AU, post-apocalyptic world, because why not. My Httyd OC AU/Child OC AU/Tiny AU. Hiccup knew he was right to worry when Snotlout took so long to return with his son. When he finds them, he also finds a certain Night Fury.
Relationships: Astrid/Fishlegs/Hiccup/Ruffnut/Snotlout/Tuffnut, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III & Toothless, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III/Snotlout Jorgenson
Series: AHeartForStories' Febuwhump 2021 [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2137413
Comments: 5
Kudos: 16
Collections: febuwhump 2021





	Tiny Plaids

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Febuwhump prompt: "Run. Don't look back."
> 
> Yep, yep. It's the 28th of February and I'm posting Day 15 of all things.  
> Well, this month didn't at all turn out the way I wanted it to. I'm still going to post a few prompts, but I obviously won't be doing all of them this year.  
> Anyway, had some trouble figuring this one out, but it ended up being a lot of fun to write.
> 
> Constructive criticism is appreciated.  
> Enjoy!

His heart pounds several times while Hiccup simply stares at what he holds in his hand. It’s a piece of fabric with frayed edges, clearly torn from the shirt it was once a part of. He knows it’s from a shirt because of the little plaid pattern, a mixture of dark and light shades of blue. It’s from the one he put on his son, Vigi.

It’s a nice and playful color and it’s bright, which helps them spot him in an instant, though he’s usually never alone.

Snotlout is supposed to be watching him, having taken the boy along with him on a trip to a video game store to see if they can find a handheld console and a game that still works. He and the twins have been very insistent on their son having something to play with.

But it’s late in the afternoon and neither of the two have returned to the hotel they’ve temporarily taken up residence in. Now the group, and Hiccup especially, worries that something might’ve happened to them. It will be horrible if Snotlout or Vigi have gotten hurt or worse! Hiccup doesn’t think he’ll ever survive such a loss.

“Snotlout, you two better be okay.” Hiccup mutters to himself as he’s all alone. Astrid, Fishlegs, Ruffnut, Tuffnut, they have no idea he slipped away from the group to go search for them. A foolish decision in hindsight, but he’s too far away to turn back now. Every second could matter.

Readjusting the hunting rifle’s strap on his shoulder, it’s used for defense and hunting, Hiccup figures they must’ve been here. He’s at the store Snotlout wanted to show Vigi, but they aren’t here anymore. And why was part of Vigi’s shirt torn and hanging from an iron bar sticking out of concrete debris? There is no blood on it, at least. On neither the shirt nor the bar and that is a good sign.

Hiccup looks around himself, scanning the abandoned and ruined buildings on either side of the street. He sees nothing but stone, steel, and glass, with the occasional splash of green as nature attempts to reclaim this land. She will succeed eventually, in the meantime, Hiccup hopes to find his lost members soon.

He wishes he had a bird’s eye view of this city, so he could see the layout and maybe find a clue from above, they haven’t been here very long. But all he knows is where they were headed, that they aren’t here anymore, and that Vigi’s shirt is torn for some reason. That isn’t much to go on and Hiccup feels afraid.

“Snotlout! Vigi!” He shouts, very aware of the dragons that could possibly be lurking in the area.

Years ago, they suddenly appeared with numbers so great it threw the whole world out of balance. Now both sides, humans and dragon alike, struggle to survive. This city he and his family are in, it's been long abandoned. Most big human settlements are.

But as frightening as those fire-breathing war machines are, losing two of his own is more painful of a thought.

“SNOTLOUT! VIGI!” But no matter how much he shouts or how loud he is, his voice echoing throughout this lifeless street, there is no reply.

Despair fills him at the lack of answers and it’s getting harder to breathe. Does he just take either one of two directions? What if it’s the wrong one?

Just then, a dragon’s angry cry echoes throughout this forest of stone and steel. It’s one Hiccup has never heard before, but it’s a sound the reaches deep inside of him and touches his very soul. It’s haunting and somehow Hiccup knows that’s where he’s supposed to go.

“Vigi,” Readjusting the hunting rifle again, this time to have a good grip on it, Hiccup runs towards the source. It’s not easy to run with a prosthetic, but he manages. He’s made this one to run.

The cry sounds again, Hiccup listens to it and takes a street to his right, certain that it will lead him to the source. And then, there is a voice.

“Don’t worry, okay, Tiny? Papa Snot is going to get you out of here!” It’s Snotlout and he sounds desperate, despite what his words are trying to make Vigi believe.

There is no audible response and that worries Hiccup greatly.

“Snotlout? Vigi?” Hiccup turns one last corner and gasps, finding an utmost frightful sight.

“Hiccup?” He comes upon Snotlout, who stares at him from over his shoulder with wide eyes when he sensed someone appearing behind him, an expression of fear he doesn’t like to show on his face.

Before them both, in the middle of a plaza surrounded by destruction, there is a dragon. It is snarling and the wings are unfurled while claws scrape threateningly into the ground. And underneath the dragon’s belly, too afraid to move, is his six-year-old son, Vigi.

"Daddy!" He shouts when he spots Hiccup, tears in his eyes as he wants to cry. He's covering his head just like he'd been taught as he lies curled up on the ground.

"My son," Hiccup whispers breathlessly. He can see the terror in his gaze, hear the tremble in his voice and his heart aches.

His resolve hardening and brows dipping, he takes the rifle and aims at the dragon.

Its scales are pitch-black in color and it almost reminds Hiccup of a cat, like the grumpy one he used to have as a boy, Fiddlesticks. The wings are bat-like and giant, the body stocky and sleek all at once. Without a doubt, it’s a powerful one and the dangerous claws and teeth do nothing to dispute this. Its eyes are lime green and the slitted pupils glare at him furiously as it growls. Upon seeing the barrel of a gun pointed at it and feeling threatened, it snorts in warning.

Snotlout stares back and forth, not sure who’s angrier. He feels like he should interrupt, but at the same time, he doesn’t know for sure if that is the right thing to do. The tension between these two is growing.

"I know dragons aren’t stupid, I’ve noticed that you understand us to some level.” It’s something Hiccup has observed, especially since getting separated from his father and coming to lead this group of misfits.

If Hiccup is right in his assumption, the dragon doesn’t show it.

“We’re taking the boy back and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll let us.” He warns the dragon. At this, it huffs and smoke puffs out from between its bared teeth. So it does understand.

“Hiccup?” Snotlout backs away slowly to reach him. “What do we do?”

“Wait for it to give me my son back or otherwise I’ll shoot it.” Hiccup growls under his breath. It’s a surprisingly decisive answer that Snotlout has yet to hear from someone like him, who’s more of a pacifist even in this world that they live in.

Snotlout would consider it out of character for him, but then Dagur has discovered some months ago that he shouldn’t threaten Hiccup through Vigi. That day, the aptly named “the Deranged” brought a side out of Hiccup that none of them have ever seen before.

It was a side to Hiccup they all had to face then. When it comes to his young son, certain exceptions can be made.

“Okay, tight plan. What if it kills him?” Snotlout asks, wondering if this plan might not be a little bit too reckless. Perhaps, it’s a surprise to hear those words come from Snotlout, of all people, who is usually all for reckless plans, especially if they are his. If something were to happen to Tiny, however, he would rather forego the reckless plan for a safer one.

He watches as Hiccup’s furious expression becomes even darker, his gaze flicking between the dragon and his cowering, scared six-year-old. Snotlout doesn’t know if the silent tears gathering in the corners of his eyes soften or harden the look.

“Give him up, dragon! You kill him, you’ll die! Hand him over, you’ll live!” Hiccup shouts in a way it will understand, short and to the point. It must’ve worked, because its growling grows in anger, an earfin twitching as they all rest flat against its neck.

Just like with their anger, Snotlout can’t tell who’s growling the loudest. Hiccup almost sounds like a dragon himself.

“I could give you a demonstration, if you’d like.” Finding the dragon too slow to respond, Hiccup informs it and the tensions in this stand-off rise higher. He takes aim above the winged creature and fires at a nearby window, shattering it to pieces.

Vigi shouts in fear and the dragon cringes visibly at the sound. Snotlout, too, startles and holds his breath, fearing how their foe may react.

There’s a twinge of guilt in Hiccup’s heart when he hears the way his son reacts to the shot, but he can’t stop now. There is something he just noticed about the animal, it’s sensitive to sound.

“Hiccup, maybe you shouldn’t be the one doing this.” Snotlout suggests, fearing the other might be too angry, or too scared, to think clearly.

Oh, he shouldn’t have lost sight of the boy. If he hadn’t, that black dragon wouldn’t have gotten its claws on him.

“Let me take care of this, Snotlout.” Hiccup’s tone is hard, his eyes never leaving his target. He’s just shy of asking him exactly  _ how _ Vigi got to be underneath a dragon of all things!

There is one problem, though. Pulling the bolt handle of the hunting rifle back, an empty shell pops out. Hiccup knows it’s empty now and he’ll have to reload if he wishes to make his threat more than a bluff.

Hopefully, the dragon doesn’t know how this weapon works.

“Dragon!” He shouts, it’s time to make a decision.

Put under pressure, it decides to give in. Its expression softens as it gazes down at the scared child underneath it, almost purring in comfort.

Moving to the side, surprising both of the two men, it noses Vigi closer to them and urges him to go. It almost seems… gentle.

Hiccup’s own expression softens and the rifle lowers. For a brief moment, disbelief is where anger used to be.

“Vigi, come here, son!” He calls out to him, not moving from his spot and keeping the weapon trained on the dragon.

Recognizing that he can come, the boy comes sprinting. Snotlout kneels and opens his arms wide to catch him as Vigi throws himself into his arms. Both are so happy to be reunited, though Tiny does cry.

“Papa Snot,” He weeps. “I’m sorry I ran off.”

“Shh, it’s okay, you’re safe now.” Snotlout hushes Tiny and holds him close, a hand on the back of his head. He isn’t often this soft, but for this little boy, he is.

He also happens to notice that Hiccup has yet to make good on his part of the deal. The dragon let the child go, now it should be let go.

“Run, Snotlout.”

“Huh?” He and Tiny look up to find Hiccup dive a hand into a pocket for a new bullet to load. Pants pockets aren’t the handiest of places to keep ammo, but that’s where he gets one from.

“Wait, you’re actually planning on taking this thing on? Hiccup, that dragon is going to kill you!” Snotlout lets go of Tiny and jumps up. He wants to rip that hunting rifle right out of his hands, grab him, and run.

But he doesn’t, because he can see it in his eyes, that anger that’s been present this entire time, that look that he’s seen only once before.

Hiccup doesn’t like threats to his family, especially when they can linger. Dagur got that message when he was made to leave after hurting one of their own. Nobody will hurt his loved ones ever again.

_ “Isn’t he my son, too?” _ Hiccup can still hear him taunt.  _ “I get to do what I want with him!” _

It was a big mistake on Dagur’s part and Hiccup hasn’t been the same since then. So maybe that is why Snotlout doesn’t argue back as much as he should.

“Somebody needs to stay, Snotlout. If we both turn our backs to it, who knows what it’ll do.” The reason Hiccup gives Snotlout to trust him isn’t an irrational one. It’s perfectly common sense to consider what the dragon, a rather unpredictable creature, would do while the three of them make a run for it.

The dragon, realizing Hiccup isn’t about to leave despite what he said, begins its snarling again and sinks lower to the ground. It’s ready to lunge if it needs to, feeling betrayed. It listened, it thinks Hiccup should, too.

“Snotlout, take Vigi, run, and don’t look back.” Hiccup tells him again, his grip on the hunting rifle tightening.

Snotlout gives him and the cat-like dragon one last glance each before he follows that order without a word. It’s only because of Tiny’s presence that he doesn’t fight it.

“Dad?” Vigi asks while Snotlout picks him up and runs in the opposite direction, back where Hiccup came from.

“You better make it back safe!” He yells at Hiccup as he goes and Hiccup takes a moment to glance back at them to make sure they’re gone. When they’ve turned the corner, Hiccup faces the dragon again.

It must be at least somewhat familiar with what a gun can do as it didn’t attack when he was looking away, like predatory animals are known to do. They have to save up their energy, so anytime they can attack a prey, it’s best done from behind.

The dragon didn’t, however, and that tells Hiccup it must feel like he has the upper hand here.

Hunting rifle loaded with the next round, face and posture determined, Hiccup has every intention to finish this stand-off by ending what he perceives to be a threat to his family. He takes aim and a second goes by while he lines his next shot up with the spot between the beast’s two eyes.

Two seconds, five, ten, fifteen, thirty, a minute…

He doesn’t fire.

The dragon is antsy as it stands before him, growing anxious with the waiting and not daring to hope that this hesitation means it might be let go, after all. It knows that’s what the human is doing, he’s hesitating.

Hiccup, he curses his brain, because he has begun to think about the past couple of minutes. Despite what people tend to say, turning one’s mind off simply isn’t as easy as people make it out to be. It certainly isn’t possible for him.

As such, he notices that the dragon is on the defense. It warned him and Snotlout not to come closer, but it has yet to actually strike. Even after Hiccup’s warning shot, it got startled, but nothing else happened.

It handed his son over without much of a fight, too. It seemed almost worried as it did so, though Hiccup is certain he must’ve imagined that. Vigi was unharmed as well. He caught a fright, but didn’t appear injured at first glance. So what was this animal’s deal?

And then there is another problem. Is the gun enough? He came here armed with one gun and a pocket knife stuffed in his pocket, but Hiccup doesn’t know if either will do much to a dragon’s hide. Nobody knows much about these creatures, what if their hide is so thick no regular bullet or knife will even put a dent in them? If that’s the case, and it figures that out, Hiccup might actually be screwed.

Suddenly, he’s not as in control as he first appeared to be.

Hiccup wants to lower the rifle and make a getaway, finger trembling and away from the trigger as he finds himself unable to even fire. The warning shot he could do, but an actual shot? One not made purely for the purpose of survival? He might not be able to do such a thing after all, no matter how much he’s been hurt or he’s seen someone he loves dearly be hurt.

But he’s too slow in his decision. Too stressed to wait any longer, the cat-like dragon strikes when it catches just the slightest change in Hiccup’s tense shoulders. It doesn’t know whether this means good or bad, just that it might be an opportunity to get out of this alive.

These “humans”, as they call themselves, despite their fragile appearance, they seem to be a lot more resilient than they first appear to be. They aren’t like dragons, they don’t have claws or dangerous teeth or fire, and yet, they can be dangerous enough that the dark dragon feels justified in its attack.

For how ready the human seemed only moments ago, his reflexes aren’t as ready as he stares in utter shock. His eyes are wide and he’s frozen in place when the dragon lunges for him with teeth bared and claws out.

It smacks the rifle right out of his hands, the weapon clanging to the ground audibly. The dragon follows that up by swinging its head and throwing the lightweight human into the nearest wall.

He lands with a hard smack and a grunt. The air knocked right out of his lungs, he slides to the ground and struggles to breathe while pain radiates from his upper back. His hand grasps his shirt and he wheezes when he can finally take a breath again.

Realizing he’s stunned, the dragon makes another move that Hiccup can’t hope to get away from. He certainly tries, crawling hurriedly out of the way when it comes for him. He can hear the claws scrape on the wall behind him before teeth grab hold of his prosthetic leg and pull him back.

His sleeves rolled up, the ground scraped his arms and hands open before Hiccup ends up underneath the black dragon on his back. Concerningly unarmed, Hiccup takes the pocket knife from his pants, hand stinging and dirty, and flips it open. The dragon recognizes it and quickly pins that hand down. Its heavy weight makes the limb feel like it’s being crushed.

“Oh no!” Hiccup yelps and only just manages to rip his hand free, the knife still under the clawed paw. He attempts to crawl from underneath the dragon, but it drags him right back.

With no way to escape, he turns on his front and covers his head and neck. Unarmed and pinned down, he can only protect his vitals and hope to survive.

Gods, Snotlout was right! How could he have ever thought he could take on a dragon?! Why did he let his anger get so out of control?

But the dragon doesn’t attack him outright. It sniffs him and Hiccup can feel its hot breath huffing down on him, brushing through his air and causing his shoulders to tense and his breathing and heartbeat to race.

What is it doing? Getting an early sniff to smell how he’ll taste?

The dragon is, indeed, sniffing the human, but only because it, or rather he, is starting to realize something. His nose presses into his pinned opponent’s back, taking a deep whiff of its scent, before moving up to bury itself into its neck, and then its hair.

The dragon makes a sound, but it’s not a growl and the human isn’t sure what to describe it as. It sounds… surprised?

The dragon  _ is _ surprised. When he found the little human wandering around, he figured quickly that this must be what human young looked like. The young looked even frailer than its adult counterparts and he knew that meant it would make for an easy meal. He didn’t want that. Even though the young is human, he didn’t want it hurt.

And for a little while, the aggression shown by the fully-grown humans made the dragon believe the two-legged creatures must prey on their own young ones as well. He’s seen some animals do it, some of the unforgivably jealous dragons do it, too. The one that can crawl through the cracks of stone to steal and eat dragon eggs comes to mind.

As for the fledgling running back to the adults, it was clearly scared of him, and the dragon figured it had run to the big ones on instinct. The adult below him, it must’ve picked a fight with him for territorial reasons, to make it clear to him that he has no right to steal its food, that is what he thought. Humans are strange beings, every one of his kin that he’s come across thus far has trouble figuring them out.

But no, he finds out he was wrong and now things make more sense. The scent of the little one is all over this one and the dragon realizes this wasn’t a predator, it’s a parent, a sire. The young human came from this one.

All this time, those two came to get the fledgling back and picked a fight to make the threat to its offspring disappear. The dragon can only respect this.

All this time, they were trying to protect the same human.

Hiccup feels a clawed paw flip him onto his back and he stares up at the pitch-black creature, its lime green eyes staring straight back at him. The pupils are no longer as narrowed, no longer as angry or scary.

But the dragon can see it now, the similarities. Humans all look the same, but these two look too alike not to be related. That should’ve been the first hint that those two were not there to hurt the fledgling.

Still, they have to end this fight.

Rearing back, the dragon takes a deep inhale of air and lets it all out in one long roar, loud enough to nearly burst the other’s eardrums. It’s a warning telling him not to mess with him again.

Closing his eyes and turning his head to the side, Hiccup undergoes the punishment, freezing in fear and barely breathing. The message is loud and clear to him.

The dragon backs away, giving him one last look before it leaves. Strangely enough, it doesn’t fly away, it runs. A waste of those large wings it possesses.

Hiccup watches it go, breathing rapidly and in disbelief that his life was just spared.

The silence is deafening, his ears drumming after that dragon roared right into his ear and nearly made him go deaf.

His back still hurts, his clothes are all disheveled, and his heart is pounding after the fright he received, but he’s alive. Somehow, he’s alive. And it’s all because that dragon decided against killing him for whatever reason.

Still recovering and panting heavily, Hiccup can only stare while his pounding heart calms down.

* * *

It takes a little while to get back to the group and the hotel they’ve claimed as theirs. Out of all the buildings in their area, its floors are the least likely to disappear beneath them from pure neglect and it has the space that they need. When Hiccup arrives and throws the doors to the lobby open, it’s to a shouting match.

“And you just left him there?! Snotlout!” Astrid’s is the first voice he hears and Snotlout follows quickly after.

“What was I supposed to do?! We didn’t know if that thing was going to chase us the second we all left!” He defends himself and it’s not like Hiccup gave him much of a choice.

Their voices are muffled, but Hiccup finds them, following the shouting to the dining hall that was probably fancy at some point in time and not the rundown joint that it is now. The second he enters, all eyes are on him.

Astrid appears to have been packing, Snotlout stands behind her with a wrist of hers in a hand of his. Ruffnut and Tuffnut are each kneeling and standing by Fishlegs, who sits in a chair with Vigi sitting in his lap. The bigger man’s arms are around him in a warm hug and there’s a bandaid on a scraped knee.

“You’re back!” Astrid breathes a sigh of relief, dropping her bag as she no longer needs it. Snotlout sags as well, letting go of the woman and placing his hands on his hips.

“Hey! See, Tiny? We told you your dad was going to be okay!” Ruffnut stands and points the boy over to his father.

“Dad!” Tiny shouts happily and jumps off Fishlegs’ lap to run up to his father, his fright from before apparently not as present as earlier.

Though very sore after the blow his back received, luckily not his head, Hiccup goes to his knees and leaves the hunting rifle on the floor as he opens his arms up wide. He captures his son in a tight hug, the boy throwing his arms around Hiccup’s neck and his legs around his middle. The force almost sends Hiccup tumbling backward and he holds back a groan as he struggles to keep his balance.

“I’m so happy to see that you’re safe.” He tells his son as he hugs him as tight as he can without hurting him. A moment passes before he pulls away to check him over. He’s certain the others have already done this, but he needs to do it, too. He sees that Vigi is okay and that does his peace of mind some good.

“You’re okay.” He mutters, the remainder of his stress melting away.

“Okay, our turn!” As father and son break apart, Ruffnut makes an announcement and Hiccup braces himself before he’s caught in a hug by five grown adults, each happier than the last to see him alive and well.

There are plenty of kisses, too. They are his family, his loves, they  _ have _ to shower him with them. And even if there was a part of Hiccup who wanted to escape, he can’t. He’s left to endure the affection and he feels safe and loved.

“Calm down!” He tells them, laughing breathlessly.

“Oh, guys! We should let him breathe!” But Fishlegs quickly draws back and the others eventually do, too. Though, they all remain kneeled around him.

Hiccup takes a deep breath and feels his back ache. Fishlegs notices, but makes a mental note to check it out in a little bit.

First things first, they need an explanation.

“So what happened? How did you get away?” Snotlout asks, watching as Hiccup wipes at his flushed cheeks. Some of those kisses were sloppier than he’s used to and probably on purpose, too.

“You know, that actually makes for a bit of an odd story.” Hiccup tells him and rubs the back of his neck.

“The dragon just… It just let me go.” He says, unsure of how crazy it sounds. He knows he’s still reeling from the experience.

“Wait, what?” Snotlout asks as he remembers the dragon and how pissed off it looked. When he left him behind as he ran with the child, he honestly believed that was the last time he would see one of his partners alive.

“Yeah,” Hiccup throws a hand up animatedly. “He got a hit in, pinned me down, smelled me all over, and then left.”

“Though, he did roar in my face. Probably to tell me not to try that again.” He quickly adds as an afterthought.

“He?” Snotlout asks and the other nods. Hiccup doesn’t know why, that’s just the vibe he got from the creature.

“Wait, back up a bit, it  _ smelled _ you?” Astrid asks, somewhat disturbed.

“What, uh, what was  _ “he” _ smelling?” Tuffnut asks strangely.

“I-I think…” Hiccup stops there and sighs, a hand scratching in his hair. He’s thinking now, wondering what that was all about, and figuring out what’s been bothering him on the way home. It’s been quite a walk, he’s had some time to think clearly.

His family watches him, Vigi once again in Fishlegs’ lap as they all wait for whatever answer is formulating in that head of his.

Hiccup is almost lost in thought, the feeling of having a creature that big powerful standing over him and breathing down on him still vividly at the forefront of his mind.

“I think that dragon was trying to protect Vigi, protect him from us. And then… Something must’ve crossed his mind because he didn’t kill me or even try to harm me after he got a good whiff of me. I think he must’ve smelled Vigi on me.” Hiccup looks back on it now and he almost marvels at how utterly insignificant and powerless he felt lying underneath that dragon.

His life, his future, his body, everything was at his mercy and he decided to let him go, all because he’s a boy’s father.

“And what makes you think it, or he, was trying to protect Tiny?” Astrid asks curiously.

“Because he was scared, but he wasn’t hurt.” Hiccup turns his attention to their son after replying.

“Vigi, son, you said you were sorry for running away, is that what you did?” He asks the boy, not a hint of agitation or judgment present in his voice. After a scare like that, he’s probably learned his lesson by now.

Tiny nods innocently.

“And I bet it took Snotlout a little while to find you?” Another nod.

“Hey! I searched as soon as I noticed he was gone!” Snotlout defends himself, which isn’t what Hiccup was going for.

“So that means the dragon had plenty of time to hurt him, but he didn’t. I think he wanted to help and actually thought Snotlout and I were there to hurt him.” He has no real basis for this theory, but it makes sense to him. Why else would the dragon have his son, a defenseless child, and then not hurt him if he ever intended to make a meal out of him? It’s the only way this makes sense.

His partners all glance at one another before looking back at him, not really like they think he’s crazy, but still like they’re having a hard time believing him.

After all, the dragons had been ruthless when they appeared and uprooted life as the world knew it so long ago.

“Well, either way, we should get that back looked at,” Fishlegs states, changing the subject. Hiccup never told them that it was his back that got hurt, but the man can just tell.

Shaking his head upon their reaction to his story, Hiccup removes his own plaid shirt, dark green in color, to lift the one underneath it.

He can’t really blame them for taking even  _ his _ word on the dragon with a grain of salt. He has a hard time wrapping his head around it, too.

But no matter, it’s not like he’ll ever run into it again since it ran off. Still strange that it didn’t fly off, however. It bothers Hiccup, nags at the back of his mind.

Fishlegs takes a look at Hiccup’s back and finds that a big bruise is forming around his upper spine. He can’t tell if anything’s broken, Hiccup’s pain doesn’t seem to be severe enough and he’s able to move around just as well as before so far and Fishlegs is comforted by this. It’s hard to find a doctor, a working hospital, and a working hospital with working equipment in this day and age.

But just to be on the safe side, he suggests that Hiccup be careful and let the rest pull his weight for the time being. His patient reluctantly agrees with him, figuring that being on the safe side is tons better than risk worsening his injury.

As it is already evening, dinner is soon over and after another hour of sitting around and talking at the campfire, the group goes to sleep with Astrid taking first watch and Snotlout insisting that he sleeps next to Hiccup and Vigi. It’s because he does feel like he abandoned Hiccup with that dragon.

They each have individual rooms on the same floor, but after the scare they had that day, they feel better sleeping in the dining hall together.

As the rest goes to sleep, Hiccup eventually dozes off believing that he’ll never see that dragon again, leaving him to forever wonder what really happened that late afternoon and why it didn’t kill him when it could and should. Hiccup attacked him. The dragon was well in his right to do so.

What Hiccup doesn’t realize, however, is that the dragon is a lot closer than he thinks.

Outside of the hotel, the dragon stalks the group, looking in through the windows of the dining area and blending in seamlessly with the shadows of the night. He appears almost invisible.

He takes a look at each of the humans this pack is made out of, spotting the short, stocky one with the black hair on top of its head on one side of their nest. But the dragon is only interested in the young he found and its parent. He is certain the little one is a fledgling male, but the adult is a bit of a question to him.

Close to the short male, right next to him as a matter of fact, lies the one who challenged him for the fledgling and the dragon sees that his nose wasn’t wrong. The little one is curled up to the adult’s chest, who has a skinny limb around him to hold him close.

They appear to be asleep, with one of the other yellow-haired ones keeping an eye out as it sits at a pile of fire and sharpens a stick. It looks fragile, too, but the dragon knows better than to be fooled.

He would like to take a closer look at the parent and juvenile, but it seems like that won’t be possible.

A shame, he thinks, as he’s curious to learn more about the two-legged creature who acted so differently from other humans the dragon has come across.

He isn’t a fool, the only reason why that strange object wasn’t used to hurt him was that the human hesitated for some reason. It must’ve felt like its young was threatened by the dragon, and yet, it didn’t outright kill him like others of its species would’ve. It’s a curious thing and it makes him wonder if, perhaps, there’s more to these two-legged beings than meets the eye.

And there is also the fact that it is capable of fear. The dragon saw it when he attacked, the undeniable look of something that is afraid. Anger, fear, protectiveness, and now love. These are not just mindless things, at least the adult he encountered today isn’t.

But it looks like his answers will have to wait as he would rather not face the one keeping watch, no matter how skinny it looks.

At least he knows one thing for certain, this human has definitely grabbed his attention and he’ll be coming back soon to find out more.


End file.
